After getting engaged, I can remember several people telling me that the first year of marriage was the hardest. They communicated this with intense eyes and a tone of voice that said buckle up. More than two years have come and gone and looking back I can honestly say that first year was one of the best years of my life. The first year is such a sweet time of setting the foundation that will carry you through the years and blending two lives into one. It’s a time of embarking on a new adventure, together. The following are lessons I’ve learned that first year that have helped us to set a firm foundation in our marriage and to continue growing as a couple every day.
1. Talk about everything.
Throughout my relationship with my husband, I have learned the value of communication. I made a commitment early on that I would not hold things inside. This has led to a wide range of conversations that have spanned from gut-wrenching, to heartfelt, to embarrassing, to direct, to emotional, to you name it. I have revealed to my husband the deepest parts of me, the parts of me that even I sometimes don’t want to acknowledge. Although my skin may be crawling in the moment, at the end of our conversations, I always feel more fully seen and more fully loved.
Talking through difficult moments and interactions (even when I don’t feel like it) has enabled us to bypass what would have been fights and resentments. It has caused us to hear each other, to connect with each other and to learn how to approach each other, rather than to allow disagreements to create distance between us.
I have learned to ask questions. I ask my husband things like, “What is the best way to approach you about difficult topics?” “How can I communicate with you when I feel my needs aren’t being met?” “How will you communicate with me about how to meet your needs?” Questions like this help me to hone my craft of becoming a wife who knows how to communicate with my husband. It isn’t a perfect science but is one we can learn over time.
2. Learn to understand each other’s differences and embrace them.
I’ve also learned, in this first year, that marriage highlights and magnifies our differences. Our differences have led to some disagreements and annoyances at times, but they have given us the opportunity to grow in understanding one another. When we seek to understand each other, we see not only each other’s weaknesses but each other’s strengths. We begin to see how we can learn from one another and complement one another. Rather than attacking each other’s differences, we learn to work with our differences by using that oh so important skill of communication described above. We can choose to embrace each other’s differences by focusing on the positives, assuming the best about one another and letting go of the small stuff.
3. Don’t just give love, receive it.
Prior to marriage, my thoughts around committed relationships dealt with how to love someone else unconditionally. How would I love someone through good times and bad? I wanted to be really good at loving. What I did not expect was how difficult it would be to receive unconditional love from someone else. Dating and marriage are two different worlds. When my husband and I were dating, if I had a bad, sad, moody, hormonal, anxious, etc., type of day, I could just tell him about it…on the phone, or after the fact. After we said I do and moved in together, he experienced the fullness of me, in all my glory, at the height of my crappy days. I couldn’t hide it or sugarcoat it. He experienced all of it. It was hard to receive his love on those days, or to believe that I deserved his love. But I am learning to embrace the truth that unconditional love is the type of love God wired me to receive. The way my husband loves me both on good days and bad days, reflects to me the love of Jesus. I am learning to embrace God’s love for me on my hardest days as well.
Whether we are single, dating, engaged, newlyweds, or marriage veterans, we can all benefit from learning to build healthy life-giving relationships. With intentional effort and commitment, we can cultivate thriving marriages. Let’s open ourselves up to loving the way God designed us to love and to receiving the love God designed us to receive.
And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. (Col. 3:14)
1 comment
I agree!